Mobile App Monetization – Make It Rain
2014 marked the year where there were more connected mobile devices than people on this planet. It’s pivotal to how we think about mobile application development and wearable technology. So how do you get paid as an app developer?Entrepreneurs and developers looking to monetize apps have a few options at their disposal:
1) Pay per download (need a killer app for people to pay today)
2) In-app advertising (need a ton of users)
3) In-app purchases
4) Freemium version
5) Free – sell user data (need millions of users to play this card)
Remember nothing is free in the mobile app world.
A wise man once told me: If something is “Free” to you, then “You” are the product! #sageadvice
Vision Mobile recently ran a report showing mobile e-commerce sales would be a $300B market in 2015. They also predicted e-commerce will generate 2.5 times as much revenue as all other revenue sources combined. App Store sales are second in total revenues at $40.5B. Mobile advertising will grow to reach $34B. While subscription revenue will grow the fastest of all to reach $9B this year. Other revenue models including royalties affiliate sales and selling services to developers will generate $18B in revenue this year.
What are some types of mobile advertisement to be considered?
Mobile advertising background (forgive me for the review):
eCPM (Effective cost per mille): The revenue for developer per every 1000 impressions.
CTR (Click-through rate): This is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad by the number of total impressions.
So is looks like: USERS CLICKED / # OF IMPRESSIONS
To get a high CTR is the relevancy of the ad and the ad placement strategy. To increase relevancy of ads, the campaign should be localized and associated: Developers want to display ads to users in their native language, and the topic of the ads should be relevant to the type of app it appears on. Ad placement, the location and format (text / static banner / animated banner) also have a correlated effect on the overall CTR.
Global Fill Rate: The percentage of the total ad inventory that is filled by paying ads. In some cases ads will either not appear at all, or a “house ad” (self-promotional ad) could appear. A high fill rate tricks many customers, however the paid ads are the only ones that equate to dollars in your pocket.
Having a monetization strategy is only half the battle in the app game. You could have your mobile ad campaign dialed in, but if your app simply is not engaging, then it really doesn’t matter how good the ads are since not many users will be seeing them.
How can I get more engagement?
Here are just a few ideas to increase brand loyalty and engagement.
Push Notifications:
Push notification when used correctly can be paramount in keeping your users engaged and coming back consistently. Just watch taking it too far a becoming a nuisance.
Web Counterpart:
Meet your users online as well as on their mobile devices. Having a web counter-part, even if not a full-featured duplicate of the app will give your users and prospects a better experience and increase your chances of being found.
Social Sharing:
Providing your users with the ability to share your app and their usage across social platforms will increase visibility and the best type of referral you could hope for. Credibility within your users social network is instantaneous when they share from your app to their favorite social platforms.
Use OAUTH:
Users hate usernames and passwords in general, maybe that is a bit of a generalization and I have no stats to back this up. It is my belief that we all have too many to remember and as a developer or owner you certainly do not want to give you audience any excuse to not use your app. Being denied access to your app because of failed login attempt could be a deal breaker and cause your user to abandon usage. Today with OAUTH being the main login mechanism for popular social platforms like Google, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more, please do yourself a favor and implement the ability to log in using social credentials if your app requires a login.
User Experience:
Spend the time and money investing in items like market research, human centered design, interaction models, information architecture, and A/B testing just to name a few. I always tell customers, it is way cheaper for us to make assumptions and mistakes on paper than once developed. Test your designs and ideas in wireframes and prototype interfaces with your target audience samples to get their feedback early and often. If you wait until BETA to get your user feedback, it could be too late depending on your funding. This will be an entire blog entry in the futures as it is such a multifaceted deep topic.
Frequent Updates / Promotions:
Build brand loyalty and show attention to detail with updates giving users props when fixing or enhancing features they asked for.
Develop for Cross-platform:
At OpenArc we use tools like Tamarind to keep a .NET dev stack portable with capabilities to build native out to is, Watchkit, Android, Android Wear and Windows Phone. Cross-platform deployments help you meet your customers where they are at and spread the love.
The mobile app space is very competitive and requires consistent work to stay at the top of your game. I hope this post rekindled some old flames or helped you generate some new ones. Follow these suggestions and stack those chips with your refined monetization strategy!
Comments
Tags: CTR, eCPM, Fill Rate, freemium, in-app advertising, in-app purchasing, mobile app, monetization, monetize, Xamarin
Trackback from your site.